Day 10: What was the largest in-game surprise you have experienced?

In a game as a player or as the GM, what was the most surprising event that happened?

As GM, my sessions are usually full of surprises. Players hardly ever do what you expect them to do. I try to keep things surprising, though it’s not always easy.

The biggest surprise I experienced is probably that one of my players, who also happens to be a co-worker has misogynistic tendencies. He plays a barbarian, who really likes tavern RP. In our second session ever, he proceeded to hit on the owner of their inn very drunkenly and clumsily. That’s fine. He then started spouting stuff like ‘A no always means yes, everyone knows that’ and similar lines like that when the female owner of the inn did not reciprocate. A chill ran down my spine. Since then, I have steered clear of scenes like that, and if there’s ever a repetition, I have to make sure that I don’t care for unpleasant surprises like that. It made me uncomfortable. It’s a 50-50 split of men and women in my game, I don’t need crap like that in my game.

As player, I had one session that was really surprising. In a unfortunately short-lived Pathfinder campaign, the group stayed in hiding at the headquarters of the church, and there they found splendid looking armor. This armor started speaking to my magus Thera. It wanted her to wear it (in a solo session I had with the GM). Sadly, that was the last time we played, we never managed to get together after that. The one time I have a character who is the recipient of something special, pfft!